Im Nauseous - Tumblr Posts

Cw: food and discussions of eating

Please let me know if I should add other CWs to this post

So every weekday I have a routine. I go to a specific dining hall on campus and I order the same 3 things every time (except when they don’t have it which causes other issues for me with the day just being wrong after that). Now I did this today but today is also a bad POTS day and it’s made me nauseous so I have a plate full of food in front of me and I just can’t get myself to eat it. Now I know I need to eat it and if I don’t eat it my day will feel off and what not. Idk what to do I also don’t want to waste the food.

absolutely the most tired critter on earth

unscripted jack with MICHAEL this time. best of the best.

i’m gagging. excellent work.

ai-less whumptober; day eleven

@ailesswhumptober 11 — hallucinations, truth serum, “Why would you even say that?” ↳ the refuge, circa 1896 word count; 1.8k

cw; drugging, mental health issues, caning, abuse, catholicism

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Morris honest to God doesn't know what Oscar had done. He hadn't been involved, not remotely, hadn't even been told about the plan — whatever it was, whether it was planned at all. Whatever had been done, he hadn't seen. Hadn't heard. He doesn't know.

But Snyder doesn't believe him.

He'd watched, just a while earlier, as Oscar had been dragged from the bunk room — kicking and screaming the way he does when he's guilty — and sat and waited for him to be returned. He had no idea what his brother was in trouble for, but he was sure he'd find out when Oscar was tossed back black and blue, suitably (to the Refuge's standards) punished for whatever slight he'd commited against Snyder.

But Oscar hadn't come back. And then they'd come for Morris.

He kneels in Snyder's office now, blood dripping from his nose and mouth, back lit up in bright agony from his neck down to his tailbone, torn open with what was surely a hundred thousand strokes from one of Snyder's rattan canes, each one — and each strike from Snyder's bare hand, his polished shoes — intended to draw a confession from Morris. Honesty, Snyder says. But Morris can't be honest about what he doesn't know, can't confess sins he isn't privy to — and he wails that sentiment again, face inches from the rich maroon rug that spreads across Snyder's office floor, as Snyder's cane cracks down on him again.

It only earns him another kick to his ribs.

"Give it up," Snyder spits, voice cold and vicious in a manner Morris rarely hears, usually reserved for Oscar or Jack. Snyder is gentler with him. Snyder likes him. But right now he is looking at Morris like he despises him, like Morris has spat in his face. A traitor. "You could bring an end to this, Morris. Immediately. All you have to do is confess." Another hit, and Morris howls. He doesn't even really remember what the question was anymore. Perhaps Snyder had never really asked one. Perhaps there isn't one.

"'m'sorry," Morris sobs, just in case it was him. Just in case Snyder, like Da, had just felt the need to hit him, an irresistible target for violence. A lamb for the slaughter. "'m'sorry, 'm'sorry, Sir, p'ease, le'mme…le'mme…"

Let me make it better. Let me atone. Whatever I did to deserve this.

"Have—have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have sinned. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your love; according to your abu—bundant mercy, blot out my tra'sg'essions—"

The cane is tossed down sharply beside his head, and Morris flinches hard but continues his prayers, reciting the atonements and verses that Da and Snyder each have made him memorise. Even as Snyder walks away, shoes a sharp rhythm against the floor, his figure so imposing that Morris can feel him without needing to see him. Over his own voice, Morris hears a cabinet open, hears things being moved against rich wood.

He assumes another cane is being fetched. Or something worse. A knife, a whip, a flame—

"My Lord, forgive me, forgive me, I will withdraw the thorns from my way of life henceforth, my wickedness kept the crown of thorns on your head—"

"Quiet," Snyder says.

Morris goes silent.

He keeps his bleary gaze on the rug beneath him, the dizzying twists of patterns and swirls that seem to suck him in like he's drowning. It's just as hard to breathe. But then Snyder's shoes step into his vision — immaculate polished black leather — and Snyder is crouching, seizing Morris by the chin and lifting his head.

He's holding a handkerchief. One of his own, neatly embroidered, monogrammed.

"If you are so reluctant," Snyder tells him quietly, "To enlighten me, even as I carve you open. Then I have other methods to procure the truth."

The handkerchief is held suddenly to Morris' face, over his nose and mouth, and the air he breathes turns sweet and cold, like mint. He meets Snyder's eyes over the handkerchief in his vision, and Snyder only stares back, eyes dark, expression severe — until Morris' vision blurs only moments later. The world tilts and his brain seems to start to spin in an instant, faster and faster and faster, an endless whirlpool that vies to pull consciousness away from him.

And then Snyder pulls the handkerchief away, sharply.

Morris is left spinning, nauseous, tethered to reality only by Snyder's hand gripping his jaw. It's a feeling he can only liken to waking up after being beaten unconscious, a dazed battle for consciousness that he's losing. The chill of menthol sticks to his nostrils, the back of his throat.

"Morris," Snyder says lowly. "Where did your brother get the clothes? The food, the blankets?"

Morris can't find his tongue. It feels like an impossible task to locate it, to make it do the correct movements to say words — but Snyder slaps him across the face then, so Morris tries.

"I don'…" he slurs. "Wha'…clo's…"

"Morris. Your brother, through methods unknown, brought contraband into my facility. Clothes and food. How did he get them."

Morris wants his mamaí. His head is still spinning, eyes unable to focus on anything, and it doesn't…hurt, nothing hurts, pain feels as if it's a distant memory. But it's scary. He's scared. He wants his mamaí. Doesn't want this man touching him anymore, that awful grip on his jaw that means he can't move at all, can't turn to focus on the blurring figure over the man's shoulder.

That awful piece of cloth, stuffed over his face again to make the slowly fading dizziness reignite like a flame. As his eyes blur once again into oblivion, for a moment he is able to see the figure. A smear of pale skin, dark curls, a long dress.

"Morris," Snyder says. It echoes in Morris' head. The handkerchief is pulled away again, and in its place a hand begins to stroke his matted curls. Brushes them carefully out of his face. It's nice.

In his mind, through Snyder's words — whatever they are this time — washing through him, he finds a memory.

"Cowboy," he mumbles. And Snyder seems, for a moment, to light up. His touch gets gentler. A reward. "Kelly," he breathes. "What did he do?"

"Was…was talkin' to Os. When. Before," it's hard to remember, but Morris wants to be good. His gaze keeps sliding like he's being spun around, but he fights to find his mother again, focus on her. He wants to be good. He doesn't want to be hit again. "'Fore he left last. Cowboy said. Told 'im that…that he'd. Bring. Give…"

"Kelly brought them here," Snyder says. "He got them to Oscar."

It sounds right, maybe. Morris can't do much else but nod, eyelids heavy, mind still swirling like a bathtub filled with water that he's drowning in.

He wants his mamaí. Swears he can see her above the water, staring down at him, not moving as it all falls away.

He wakes up in a bed.

"Mamaí," he mumbles immediately, as soon as he's found his tongue again. "M..mm…m'mmy…?"

"What?" Oscar says, from beside him in bed. His voice sounds strange, deep. It's dark, and Morris can't see. His eyes will barely open. It's freezing cold, like it always is in the farmhouse.

"Mamaí," Morris repeats.

Oscar releases a breath that seems to shake. "Christ," he breathes. In the narrow bed they share, he shuffles closer. "She ain't here, Mo."

That doesn't make any sense. Not only because Ma is always here, but because Morris had only just seen her. She wouldn't have left. She never leaves Morris.

"Jus'," Morris slurs. He scrunches his eyes shut hard and opens them again, but all he can see is a muddle of a room that's much too crowded for their bedroom. "Jus'…mamaí was jus'…"

She was just here. Morris fights to sit up — doesn't understand why Oscar seems instantly so panicked at him doing so, hands hovering around him — and looks around the room. Doesn't recognise an inch of it, but he immediately recognises his mother again, as vague a figure as she is, all the way on the other side of the room. She's wearing her long cardigan, has her hair up in an untidy pile of dark curls. Morris tries to go to her, but his legs don't seem to work, and Oscar keeps a firm hold on his wrist, tight enough that Morris is sure it should hurt. But it doesn't. Nothing does.

"I wan' mamaí," he urges. Oscar's grip gets tighter.

"She ain't here, Mo."

Morris can feel his eyes start to burn, fighting to keep them on his mother, but his vision twists and then she's gone — moved somewhere else, a figure in the corner of his vision that he can't seem to catch. "Can see her—"

"No, you can't—"

"I can—"

"Mo, she's dead. She ain't here. She's dead."

The world seems to stop.

And then it starts tilting again — in the other way this time. Like Morris had reached the apex of a leap and began to fall.

"No," he whispers. His stomach is turning, vision blurring more, but this time it's with tears. "No, she…why…why would you even—say that?"

"Fuckin'—'cause it's true, Mo. Ma's dead. You know that. You—" he stops himself suddenly, like he'd been about to say something that he thinks it's best Morris doesn't hear. He swallows. Morris starts to cry. "Jesus. Fuck. What the fuck did Snyder do to you?"

It's a rhetorical question, asked to the air, but Morris' chest still aches because he doesn't know. He can only sob, feeling as if everything is suddenly crumbling around him, and as it crumbles, his back begins to burn like a fire catching. His jaw begins to ache, fingerprints bruised into it. He weeps as Oscar pulls him carefully back into the bed and lays beside him, pulling a blanket around them both, just like he did when they were really on the farm. When Ma was really alive.

"'m'sorry," Morris sobs. He still doesn't really know where he is, but he knows Oscar is here. Knows Ma isn't. Oscar pulls him closer like they're kids and wraps an arm around Morris as tightly as he dares when Morris' back is an open wound.

"'s'okay," he whispers back, voice scratchy and soft. Deep like he's more a man than a boy. "I got you, Mo. 'm'here."

Morris falls back into oblivion and dreams of nothing.